WASHINGTON – Europe has endured the pain of layoffs, wage cuts and tax increases designed to bring government debt under control. So where’s the gain?

Far from falling, debt burdens are rising fastest in European countries that have enacted the most draconian austerity programs, according to The Associated Press’ Global Economy Tracker, which monitors 30 major economies.

The numbers back up what many analysts say: Austerity isn’t just painful. It can be counterproductive and even make a country’s debt load grow.

Many fear the cutbacks will cause Europe to sink into a self-defeating spiral: Higher debt leads to harsher austerity, growing social instability and deeper economic problems. Governments could find it even harder to pay their bills.

The pain is already intense. Portugal’s unemployment rate hit a record 14 percent at the end of last year. Ireland’s economy contracted a worse-than-expected 1.9 percent in the July-September quarter of 2011. And Greece reported its already basket-case economy shrank 7 percent in the October-December quarter of last year.

“This isn’t a healthy situation,” says Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland.

Under a deal approved Tuesday by the 17 countries that use the euro and the International Monetary Fund, Greece will get a $172 billion bailout in exchange for accepting another dose of austerity that includes laying off 15,000 civil servants and slashing the minimum wage by 22 percent.

The best way to compare debt burdens among countries is to look at the debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. When it exceeds 90 percent, it’s considered bad for an economy’s health. GDP is the broadest gauge of economic output.

Simple math explains why austerity can worsen government debt: If spending cuts and tax increases tilt a country into recession, GDP shrinks. So debt doesn’t even have to grow to become a bigger burden on a contracting economy.

“You can’t fix the debt-to-GDP problem if GDP is falling,” says David Kelly, chief market strategist for JP Morgan Funds.

Recession also adds strains to the budget. Tax revenue dries up. Spending on unemployment benefits and other social services rises.

Economic conditions deteriorated at the end of last year, suggesting that Europe’s government debt likely grew even heavier. Many economists question whether the latest rescue plan can succeed over the long run.

“The Greek debt deal puts off the day of reckoning,” says Eswar Prasad, senior professor of trade policy at Cornell University. “We can breathe a sigh of relief for the next few weeks. But a lot of trouble is still coming.”

What Europe needs, says Paul Christopher, chief international investment strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors, “is not austerity but economic reforms.”

Across Europe, economic growth is constrained by inefficiencies, such as rules that protect favored businesses from competition and generous retirement plans that cost too much and pull productive workers out of the labor force.

But reform takes time that Europe can’t spare.

The only way out, Morici says, is a breakup of the eurozone. Weak countries like Greece and Portugal must abandon the euro and reintroduce their old, less valuable currencies. The return of the weak Greek drachma and Portuguese escudo would make Greek and Portuguese products less expensive in foreign markets and allow them to get a rejuvenating economic boost from growing exports.

The alternative, he says, is deepening pain and social instability.

“The stakes are enormous,” Morici says. “Unemployment could easily rocket above 30 percent in Greece for years. With the government having no real means to ease the pain, revolutionary conditions will prevail.

“Even now, Greece is little more than a barn full of straw in the middle of a summer drought.”